55 Quotes by Simon Baron-Cohen

We all know the kinds of short-term states we can enter that can compromise our empathy. These include being drunk, tired, impatient, or stressed, during which we might say or do the wrong thing to someone else and later regret it. The feeling of regret is a sign of our empathy circuit coming back on, but the fact that we say or do the wrong thing is nevertheless – at that moment – a fluctuation in our empathy circuit.

Empathy is a necessary step for truth and reconciliation.

Empathy is a skill like any other human skill - and if you get a chance to practice, you can get better at it.

I'm hoping that autism is going to get to that same point, where it becomes quite ordinary to say, 'I have autism,' or 'I have Asperger's syndrome,' and that there will be many more resources available to make life easier for people on the autistic spectrum.

What we want is that one day every workplace will be diverse - we already encourage that with gender and ethnicity, but the next frontier is neurodiversity and it will become ordinary. People won't think twice about it.

I think it's particularly clear in borderline personality disorder (BPD) that there's a strong association between early environmental deprivation and neglect and abuse and later outcome of BPD.

People with autism flourish in domains where the information is consistent and predictable, and struggle most in domains where the information is ambiguous and unlawful.

Autistic peoples' excellent attention to detail means they may make fewer mistakes, and their narrow focus may mean that they are not satisfied until a task is completed.

Maybe because I had a sister with a disability I was already sensitised to and fascinated by people who think or develop differently.